We've gone from 12 to 30 people in 14 months and the on boarding process is currently whoever hired you shows you things. The leadership has now asked me to fix it. i'm in ops, this isn't my background, and the brief was basically one sentence long.

where i've got to alone:

I think there's basically two things here. There's company-wide stuff (tools, policies, who's who) and there's role-specific stuff, and those feel like different problems. The role-specific part can't really be written centrally, the manager has to own that because they know what the person actually needs to know. And if that is a 10 page google doc, nobody is going to read it.

I need to make it worth reading, in a way that people would read it at least once to get the overall understanding of things.

What i can't work out is the format. one long doc? a checklist? a folder per role? something a human walks you through? A recorded guide! I have no idea

TLDR - How would you, an experienced HR person, fix the onboarding flow of a rapidly growing company?

PS - Tell your cheapskate founders to hire an HR advice is not gonna help here

I work as a recruiter for a company and our main office is pretty small, like 7 people for a company of 400 employees. I say this to illustrate that im constantly interacting with the people in my office.

I was talking to my boss recently and she stops our conversation mid way and tells me that I'm "letting myself go" and that im doing a bad job at representating our office because of my appearance. She was looking at my hair when she said it. Ive had a buzz cut my whole life and I recently decided to grow it out so its at an awkward phase. That said, i still maintain it dIly. I was also chastised for having nail polish as a young male. She never outright told me to do anything but strongly hinted/encouraged me to change my appearance, but it was heavily implied and encouraged. Our office dress code is business casual and I wear dress shirts and dress pants daily. Sometimes I'll wear our company's quaterzip but not that often. Im confused if they are right or if they are just being old school.

For more context, a male coworker was told something similar for havint a patchy beard despite the fact he's probably the best dressed here on a regular basis.

I’m 50 and currently working as an HR Manager. My whole job has been self taught since 2019 but I had 12 years prior experience as a program manager of a group home.
My boss is retiring and the company will be closing in about 18 months to two years, so I’m starting to plan my next move. I’m looking at the Human Resources Management Certificate through Simon Fraser University because it’s online and flexible, and I can take one or two courses at a time.

My question is: is it common for HR professionals around my age to do further education? I’m not trying to start a brand‑new career, just strengthen my credentials for future roles. I have a lot of experience in HR, operations, investigations, RTW, and compliance, but I don’t have a formal HR certificate. I’ve been passed over on 2 opportunities and from seeing who was hired, I feel like not having formal education was a factor.

Would employers see this as worthwhile at my age, or is it unnecessary? I should also note that my boss will be cost sharing the course.

I need to have a talk with my supervisor tomorrow, and I need some good wording on how to bring these things to her. First of all, there's a lot of gatekeeping going on. I do not feel like her teammate. Whenever there is an event that human resources is supposed to organize or host, she doesn't share any of the details with me. I walk into these meetings blind and without an idea of what my expectations are or any way that I can help. I do ask her beforehand if there’s anything that I should know, and she says No.

We're not having any weekly or biweekly meetings so that I can understand what is expected of me. We have not met to kind of map out how the school year is going to look and some of the human resource cycles of a school or an independent school, especially since this is my first full year in HR. Last year I started around November, December, so that was, you know, a bit before the after the school year already started. This is the first year seeing things and understanding the HR cycle from the beginning of the school year. I just don't think that she is explaining things very clearly for me to understand.

There are some job duties on my job description that she is still handling and has not handed over to me yet. And I am noticing a bit of frustration from her about things. For instance, yesterday I was CCed in an email, and I was unclear about whether it was something that she should handle or something that I should handle. Now, granted, I probably should have checked in with her to see who was going to take care of that, but I feel like that's the part that I'm, you know, having the issue with, is the fact that things are so unclear in terms of what are her duties, what are my duties, what duties I'm taking over. So, she came in my office and she asked me about it, and she just, like, scoffed, and walked away saying I need to communicate with her and ask.

I’m coming into HR from a previous role at the school that was more forward facing and where I received a lot more praise for the things that I was doing. Now I’m just confused most of the time with no clear understanding of what I can do to help. She often comes into my office to express how overwhelmed and frustrated she is, but never puts more in my plate when I ask to help. She’s been a one man show for a long time. This is a new position that’s just opened up last year so I understand that they’re still figuring out my role and where I fit in and what responsibilities should be mine, and what’s hers. and she’s also new in management so I get that it’s a learning curve for her as well. She also seems like the type to like to stay busy so i don’t think she wants to hand over any duties. She wants to be the go HR person and just give me menial tasks here and there. It’s feeling very unfulfilling for me.

I’m just starting to feel really lonely in this new role and it’s starting to make me not like my job a bit

Hi everyone!

I’m currently an HR coordinator and I would like to transition into benefits. I’m not sure that will happen at my firm but I just want to keep my options open. If you work in benefits, how did you get your start? What do you enjoy about it and what do you hate about it?

Also, I have a PHR certification, but I was curious if a different certification could help my chances of landing a role, I want to check before I spend the money.

Thank you!!

We have teams in a few states, but as we grow I am realizing that I need to incorporate more training on how to avoid engaging in discrimination in hiring. Mostly it is staff who really want to see us improve our diversity but then want to do things like filter for finalists by race and ethnicity, which gave me a literal heart attack. Or we had an entry-level opening and someone flagged that a candidate seemed too old for the position. I felt able to address those conversations (and honestly, someone with more work experience making a career change could be fantastic in this role) but I need to do some staff training before we do another hire.

We're pretty small, so we form staff hiring committees as needed and I'm hoping that there's some module somewhere that we can just license for staff education on this topic.

I'm responsible for HR, but untrained.

Do you recommend I pursue the PHR certification now or wait one more year to qualify for the SPHR certification?

I have four years of experience in HR as an HR Manager. I’m currently employed, but looking for a new job and have not had much luck in the past 6 months. So I’m looking at HR certifications for a boost since I only have a non-HR bachelor’s degree.

I would also be paying for this myself.

Hello,
Legal Industry
80 Employees
Multi-state (5) Mostly 1 remote employee in each, besides 2 of those states

I have been with the firm for five years now, I have been an HR Generalist for 2 & then moved to an HR Manager role. I have 1 HR assistant.

Throughout my tenure, there has been HUGE amounts of change in structure, policies, systems, etc. The firm has always been toxic, but prioritized being better for the most part in the past few years.

I created & implemented set policies, systems, built the HR department to what it currently is & of course stepped up as needed with other things.

I manage a full HR function - benefit recommendations, terminations, hires, interviews, guidance, multi-state payroll, unemployment claims, leave administration, etc.

The firm has always been toxic & one of the main contributors to that is an individual who is untouchable & is always connected to HR.

After my direct manager, Managing Partner, left, my role has changed quickly. At first it was ok, but as the months go by, it’s become increasingly challenging & confusing.

I have been used in many strategic ways and I see myself as a strategic HR manager, with hopes to eventually take on an HR Director title. I have brainstormed at higher levels, I have spoke on business related decisions, salaries, succession planning, implemented 401k program, full payroll, etc.

I’m in a current predicament where the new structure is not seeing my value as a strategic partner and were supposedly unaware that the managing partner was using me in these ways.

I was told that they view me as a “traditional hr” and they don’t need an “hr director”. This has not been the case for the past 3-4 years. I thought I was growing, developing, and one day would become titled as an HR Director.

I did ask for a big raise and ultimately was told no due to the above … this was after they asked me to write my job description so they could review. The job description was strategic & meshes HR manager & director duties (as this is my current role & duties).

I was given zero constructive feedback during my review & was actually told that I did not give myself enough credit on the review form.

I have not had a mentor, other than the ones around me with no direct HR experience. Although, they believe they are also experts in HR & best practices often get thrown to the side.

Not sure where to go from here. I am paid well for an HR Manager ( I have seen higher pay with less responsibilities) & am able to work in a hybrid environment, but with no continued leadership / strategic role or further growth it makes me feel uneasy about my career & growth.

I don’t want to just be a paper pusher top down, I want to advise, I want a seat at the table (which has been stated before & I was working towards that), and now that has been halted, which is very disappointing to me.

I test for my SHRM - SCP in December.
I have a bachelors in Business Administration- HR.

Advice?

Edit:
What are typical duties of an HR Manager at an organization like this?

What delineates HR manager & HR Director ?

I have been an HR assistant for 7 years. The past 2 years I've been a SR HR Assistant focused on Benefits. I'm tired of being an assistant. I'm tired of being called on to cover front desk lunches, or not having a private workspace to focus, or being the last to know anything. I'm tired of getting crapped on all the time. I'm tired of it all. Today was my last straw but I am doubting my skills and don't know what to look for next.

I currently work for a public school district. Any ideas on what my next move could be? I'd like something remote mainly due to carpooling conflicts.

Hello,

Figured I repost it here since it is related to HR. A benefits specialist position is open, but the benefits specialist would also be handling worker's comp, leaves of absences, absences, retirement, billing, etc for a school district of approximately 1000 people.

TLDR: The benefits specialist role is incredibly workload heavy. The current benefits specialist discouraged me from applying due to the amount of stress she's in. A retiree who has been helping out encouraged me to apply to show "growth" but I don't want to apply. I've been with this district for a year, I'm very happy with my current role, and I'm interested in another position that is guaranteed to open up in 2 years.

Any advice would help, thank you!

My company is looking to switch to a central HRIS platform. Ideally we would also be able to manage compensation, payroll, talent/recruitment as well. This woukd be a long term project (think go live in roughly 4 years)

Over 35k employees globally across 30+ countries.

I'm the only HRIS person in the company, and believe me I'm already pulling my hair out at the prospect of finding a central system for our global workforce.

I've been in the field about 8 years and have worked with ADP WFN, Dayforce, and UKG but only on the domestic level and UKG was way back at the start of my career in HRIS.

We have ADP WFN right now at least for the US (all encompassing for payroll, time, benefits, performance, recruitment, etc.)

We got a demo for ADP Lyric and as much as I hate our current ADP set up, Lyric does seem to be able to cover a LOT of what we want on a global scale.

If we need to have payroll separately from HRIS that's also an option for us.

But I need to hear from the people- what systems do you guys like/use?

How do I educate people on this without sounding petty? I’m so tired of people thinking they signed some binding contract when it’s just an offer letter.

I completely recognize it’s a pet peeve and I also recognize it’s usually people being negatively impacted but dammit, it’s not that hard to understand!

Edit: the prompting of this is an employees whose role has expanded over time. They got a pay bump and a new title and they don’t like a new title. Y’all are taking a pet peeve rant too seriously

I’m handling HR and accounts for a small startup, and we’re trying to set up a proper HR system without spending too much on software.

At the moment, I’m looking for something to manage employee details, attendance, leave, payroll, salary slips, onboarding, etc.

For those working in startups or small companies in India, what tools are you using? Any simple and affordable HR/payroll software you’d recommend?

Also, how do you guys handle PF, ESI, TDS and other payroll compliances? Do you use HR software, accounting software, or mostly Excel?

Would be great to hear what’s actually working for you.

Good morning! I’m new to ADP and will soon be taking over payroll for my company from our current 3rd-party contractor, who has made quite a few errors. On our last payroll cycle, several employees had their 403(b) loan payments doubled. I've been searching ADP to figure out why this occurred, but I can't seem to locate the cause. Has anyone encountered this issue before and know what might have triggered it? TIA 😁

So I have been tasked with improving/coming up with ideas for our current call off line for our associates.

A little background. I work in HR for a warehouse and we use excel spreadsheets for quite literally everything. I’ve been at this job for a month and I’ve been added to no joke 25 of them. It’s incredible they have been able to keep this system going like this. The call off line is another thing we use a spreadsheet for. Currently they call the number and it goes to a voice box that has a maximum capacity of 200 calls. We have roughly 1000 employees and only 10 are in HR. So as you can imagine it fills up quite often and people can no longer leave voice messages.

At the location we have a “transportation” side and a “operations” side. It’s fancy for delivery driver and warehouse. Now our warehouse has roughly 4 different departments as well. I really just want to help make a better system. My first kind of idea is to come up with a voicemail that separates it by department. That way the departments can check their own voicemail and don’t have to depend on us to clear it out for them. But that could also be a mess because then HR would have to depend on them to report it to us rather than us listening to it ourselves. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned is people aren’t always phenomenal communicators.

At the end of the day I just want to help create a system that streamlines the entire system so that every department can have what they need, and we don’t get so behind cuz we have a ton of other things that require our attention.

Please help 😭

I wanted to get some perspective because I have a few years of HR experience under my belt and today, well, I mentioned my salary to a colleague and they got visibly upset at how much I was being paid. Not because it was a lot, but because it was a little for “what I do.”

To give some context, I helped build this company up. It was a very small company, and now is about 30-40 people. I made the handbook, all the SOP’s, and recruited almost everyone in office.

I do everything from recruitment (obviously,) to CFRA, to investigations, performance reviews, offboarding and payroll.

Most importantly, I built the company’s ERP from the ground up. Like, I literally sought the vendor, met with a consultant weekly, and built everything for every department. I’ve never done something like this so I had to spend many hours learning the backend workflows and front end UI customizations.

Now, I spent so much time building up our processes, that I mostly maintain. It feels like I even act as an operations manager for a lot of things, such as approving purchases, refunds and exchanges, logistic processes, and more. This, I will admit, is partly being it’s a small company and partly because I know the business and all the workflows since , well, I built them.

Now, here’s the number, as you’re probably wondering. It’s just north of 80k.

Am I being underpaid?

I feel like I do a lot. But also, I also feel like I don’t do too much sometimes. Maybe I just got better at the role? I’m not sure.

I will say, this role gave me tons of experience, and that’s invaluable.

But I live in California, and as well all know, shits pricey here. So what do you think?

I'm in my late 20s and live in NYC. I've reached my 5th year of employment and I work in a People Operations role with an emphasis on Benefits and the Employee Lifecycle (but I own and lead so many different functions and initiatives)

When you live in such a wealthy city like NYC, it is very important to not compare yourself to other people.

But it's gotten to the point where I'm being lapped by my own friends in every other industry, I see younger kids from my college graduate, move to the city and a year later they're already making like 120k.

I'm pretty frugal and am excellent with finances, so I don't struggle, but I work so many hours and so hard.

I've been testing the market for months for a new job, but haven't had luck yet. I know it's a rough job market, but I feel like shit when I see some 22 year old from my college move to city, instantly get a job as an account executive and start making 6 figures.

I guess this is more of late night vent post, but I'm just starting to wonder where I go from here.

I used to love this field, so much that I got a Masters in HR and my PHR. I’ve been in leadership, and more recently have been looking to move on to a new company due to burnout. I find that many companies are now “bundling” roles and expect one person to be an expert in EVERYTHING “related” to HR. In addition to having years of experience, they want certs, degrees, union experience, etc. Additionally, you’re expected to be an EXPERT in payroll, benefits/total rewards, talent acquisition, training & development, etc. They want you to be 100% “available” all the time, and don’t care if you burnout. There are times when I might have to lookup a regulation to ensure I’m giving correct information, and yet they look at it as incompetence. I just don’t know anymore. The last interview I had was a no for me. The pay didn’t match the expectations and they emphasized needing “someone energetic who can hit the ground running.” Anybody else feel a little discouraged?

Hi everyone!

I’m just beginning my journey into Human Resources and plan to self-study for the aPHR certification to build a solid foundation.

For those of you who have taken the exam recently, I’d love to hear about your experience!

• What study materials or practice tests did you find most helpful (e.g., Pocket Prep, HRCI official guides, specific books, etc.)?
• How close were the practice questions to the actual exam?
• Is there anything you wish you had known before starting your preparation?

Any advice, tips, or resource recommendations would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi all,

I worked on our HRIS as an admin and was just beginning more training to expand further into HR when I was laid off. I did not get the chance to train on benefits admin, so I have a couple of questions.

I was laid off at the end of June, right before their open enrollment for July.

I had no problem electing Cobra coverage for Vision and Telemedicine in July; however, in August I encountered a problem on the payment portal where there was no option to submit a payment.

So I contacted the support team for the company (ABY Benefits, if anyone is familiar with them) and they said "there was a change in the rate and the broker didn't inform us. We'll fix this."

I guessed it was due to my former employer's open enrollment period and whatever new plans they had chosen.

Since then, ABY has sent me an email stating that my payments for Telemedicine are due on the 1st of each month and Cobra doesn't allow for late payments. Since I was unable to pay August 1st due to their portal error, and Vision wasn't included, I responded asking how to proceed.

They didn't answer, but now I have received a notice that my Vision plan was terminated due to "New Plan Year - Benefit Not Offered."

As I understood it, Cobra continuation of previous coverage is required for 18 months. If the company reduces coverage for their CURRENT employees, or stops offering a plan, shouldn't FORMER employees on Cobra still have access to the plan?

Also, if payment was unable to process due to their error, and Cobra doesn't allow for late payments, am I just screwed on both counts?

Final question: who do I even ask- should I ask ABY, my former employer, or find out who the broker is? I don't know who is actually in charge here.

Thanks for any help/insight. I was hoping to learn all this stuff while I was in my former job, but alas, I was cut loose before I had any benefits training.

We have a VP position and the hiring manager wants to possibly engage an executive search firm. Are there any firms you would recommend? Highly preferred those in the Engineering or science arena.

When I search two firms came up Cowen and Boyle. Have you ever worked with one of these before?

I'm looking for a new HRIS for our company. We're around 200 employees and very international, more than 14 offices around the world. I've been exploring Personio, HiBob, and BambooHR. The one I've liked the least so far is BambooHR. We currently use Deel and it's been absolutely horrible for us.

We don't need an HRIS for payroll, more one with robust leave management, good reporting/analytics/dashboards, custom fields, ATS, performance management, and customer support that isn't solely AI.

I'm leaning more towards HiBob than Personio, but I'm slightly at a loss and need to submit a proposal to management next month. Any advice or recommendations would be much appreciated. Thank you!

Hello, looking to purchase 1 or 2 textbooks to help me prepare for the exam. What would you recommend?

Hello fellow HR professionals! The day has come when my role was taken over by AI and I have been laid off, along with hundreds of my peers. With that said, I’m hoping to pick your brains on interviewing in the HR space. I was at my previous firm for an extremely long time so I’m a bit rusty!

When going in for interviews, is it still a thing to bring your resume with you printed on fancy resume paper? Also, does anyone have any tips on how to handle the question about what is your biggest weakness?

Thank you!

We extended an offer to a highly qualified candidate for a technical role. She was the strongest applicant in the pool, and we even went $30k above the posted salary range to bring her on ($200k+)

After the background check came back, we learned she has a pending felony charge, which arose after she applied for the role. The charge is non‑violent and unrelated to the job duties, so I don’t have concerns about her ability to perform the role.

What I’m unsure about is how to handle the fact that the case is still pending.

For HR professionals familiar with California’s hiring laws (especially Fair Chance Act compliance):
What’s the appropriate next step?

- Is there a standard process for addressing pending charges?

- How do employers typically evaluate situations like this?

- Any guidance would be appreciated.